Computing and statistical data analysis:
remote login info
There are a number of ways to log in to the RHUL linux cluster.
Hopefully one of the options below will work for you.
Logging into linappserv0:
Once you have access to a unix environment (e.g. using one of the methods
below), from the unix prompt type:
ssh -X username@linappserv0.pp.rhul.ac.uk
where of course you put your username before the @. Remember that everything
is case sensitive.
You will be prompted for your password. If this works you
should get a prompt that looks like:
[linappserv0]~>
And you're in! To exit, type exit. Now to get access to a
unix environment in the first place, try one of the methods below.
From a Macintosh:
First you need to have Xquartz installed on your mac, which you can
get from here. Then just start
a terminal window (app is in Applications->Utilities->Terminal).
Using mobaXterm on your own computer:
You can download and install mobaXterm from here. The home version is
free and appears to have all of the capability we need. You need to download the "installer" (not the "portable")
version.
Using cygwin on your own computer:
You can download and install cygwin from here. I've copied some more
information on how to install it into the file here, but it is difficult to keep this up to date.
Cygwin can be complicated and it may be best to use a more lightweight solution
such as mobaxterm.
Using Xming on your own computer:
You can download and install the x-windows server Xming on your own PC.
It is available free here. This
allows you to open an x-window and from there to login to other unix
machines using ssh. I have had some difficulty with this and prefer
mobaxterm (see above).
From the RHUL teaching lab using PuTTY/Xming:
For 2017 the preferred option if you want to work from
the PCs in the RHUL teaching lab is the following:
From the RHUL teaching lab using cygwin:
The first bench of computers in the RHUL teaching lab (closest to the door)
should have cygwin installed (might work on all PCs).
From the RHUL teaching lab using Exceed:
NB This no longer appears to work from RHUL -- please use cygwin
Most of computers in the RHUL teaching lab except the ones on the bench closest
to the door should have Exceed installed.
Note that the main difference between Xming and cygwin is that cygwin
provides a complete emulated unix environment on a windows computer.
Xming will simply allow
you to create e.g. an x-windows terminal window (an xterm) and from
there you connect to another linux machine with ssh.
Transfering files to linappserv0:
For some of the course exercises it may be necessary to download files
from the web and then to transfer these files to the RHUL linux cluster,
linappserv1.pp.rhul.ac.uk.
First a warning: when you download a text file, e.g., a C++ source
file, from the web to a Windows machine, Windows may place the suffice
".txt" on the end. You don't want this and if it gets put on you
should rename the file to get rid of the .txt suffix.
To transfer files from a PC to linappserv0 you can use the program ftp
or one of its variants (sftp, psftp, WinSCP3). From RHUL the following
appears to work:
It should also be possible to use psftp via PUTTY; but from the RHUL computers
I couldn't get this to work. If anyone has better luck with this please let us
know.
Update -- thanks to Andy for the following recipes using OpenSSH's
secure copy, SCP (substitute your username appropriately):
scp myfile username@linappserv0.pp.rhul.ac.uk:/home/username/
or to transfer from the server back to my laptop:
scp username@linappserv0.pp.rhul.ac.uk:/home/username/myfile ./
This works on Mac OSX, Ubuntu Linux and on Windows. WinSCP is available
here:
http://winscp.net/eng/index.php
It comes with OSX and Linux as standard. You can transfer entire
directories too. To the server:
scp -r myfolder username@linappserv0.pp.rhul.ac.uk:/home/username
From the server:
scp -r username@linappserv0.pp.rhul.ac.uk:/home/username ./
Glen Cowan